3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former? • Hacker News Board

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#211

Post by Isofarro » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 7:30 PM UTC

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #138

I think the question is flawed. 1) We don't cater to IE9, which is at 5.11% according to stat counter. IE9 is a bad choice point for this - it's the first IE that had auto-update. Everyone left. We're catering to IE8+; 8 is currently at 6.5%. 2) You don't count the version; you count the version and all its successors. That is, we're not catering to 8, we're catering to 8+. 8+ is at almost 35% and is still the domina…

" 1) We don't cater to IE9, which is at 5.11% according to stat counter. IE9 is a bad choice point for this - it's the first IE that had auto-update. Everyone left. We're catering to IE8+; 8 is currently at 6.5%."

Why bother? in a few months it will be 5.5%. Next year it will be 1%. Why invest any time or attention to a browser whose market share is low and continue downwards into nothingness?

Do nothing. The IE8 problem will work itself out naturally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz9810Y7ZRw

"2) You don't count the version; you count the version and all its successors. That is, we're not catering to 8, we're catering to 8+. 8+ is at almost 35% and is still the dominant aggregate browser."

That's just a sleight-of-hand obfuscation. If 9+ is 30%, why quibble over the extra 5% (and only dropping over time) that IE8 will offer. It's a diminishing return adding an older browser to the browser support list.

"5) The web solution for this is WAI-Aria, which began in mid-2012, and became a candidate recommendation three months ago."

No, WAI-ARIA became a Recommendation in March, not a Candidate Recommendation. The distinction between the two is two independent implementations.

"8) As far as I know, no single group of disabled users reaches 1% of the user base."

* Colourblindness (8% of Caucasian Men) * Dyslexia

"9) ... Your site has no aria markup at all"

The non-presence of ARIA does not make a site inaccessible.

"12) In short, because like you, most small web authors are more comfortable writing about the problem than being part of the solution."

Unfortunately, you are presenting the opposite side of the problem. So you have a little more knowledge about accessibility issues than the OP - but not enough to pass a quick scrutiny.

Perhaps, what is needed is for you and I to stop being part of the problem of disseminating half-truths, and spend that time quietly doing our jobs properly, and showing the results of these. Invest the time to teach someone else how to build accessible websites, and encourage them to also share what they know.

In all fairness, the poster of the blogpost has a fighting chance of improving her skills. She is worth teaching, for the scales of dogma have fallen from her eyes, and she is enlightened.

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#212

Post by Isofarro » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 7:41 PM UTC

lilsunnybee wrote: post #209

nailer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of skaters and kids on scooters and have become injured thanks to the those rubber stoppers. You can't rely on them if you're disabled, because they're not on every corner. I've also read that it's cheaper to give disabled people a full time minder than to run these programmes. Solutions that start with 'let's change the world' never, ever work. Let's fix screenreaders. And help the blind by analysing what;'s i…

I can't imagine what "these programmes" you're referring to could be that could possibly be cheaper than providing full-time personal assistants to every visually impaired person in your area. The statement sounds pretty unlikely, and really demands a very reliable source, but you've provided none for support. Beyond that though, even if this were true, the added expense alone is not enough to justify treating people…

"the added expense alone is not enough to justify treating people with disabilities as second-class citizens, who have to be "minded" rather than allowed to freely navigate their own communities, "because it's a bit cheaper that way!""

Reminds me of a Better Off Ted episode resolution: http://www.tv.com/shows/better-off-ted/racial-sensitivity-12...

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#213

Post by vegardx » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 7:52 PM UTC

Groxx wrote: post #208

vegardx wrote: post #122

Speaking as a colour-blind person (protanopia) I welcome this kind of thoughts with open arms. There's actually not much you have to do in order to make a website at least readable if you just have some basic concepts in mind when designing. The latest fad with soft pink and grey is really bad, almost unreadable for me. Luckily, I can usually just select the text and get blue/white contrast, which makes it more reada…

As a person without color-blindness, but is interested in making it easier for people with: there are a lot of different varieties of color blindness. Obviously you can (and usually should) do things like "use different brightnesses", but it seems to me that this is more solvable by e.g. an OS-level color filter. Something that allows you to compress colors into the range you can see. Would that be even remotely usef…

You can change contrast, brightness and such in most modern OSes, but I'd rather have people take it into account and choose colours wisely. The problem for most colour-blind people is contrast, not the colours them self.

I can't speak for all colour-blind people, but generally OSes have been really good at it, the problem is usually inside the browser window. And making everything look like a unicorn had puked rainbows all over your screen, while making it very readable, is not comfortable.

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#214

Post by lilsunnybee » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 7:54 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #21

Tomte wrote: post #2

Probably because those 3% are homogeneous, while the 9% decompose into lots and lots of categories, all with specific needs, and all much smaller than 9%.

Yes. Off the top of my head, I know of at least four different types of color blindness (from red-green all the way down to total monochromatic vision), total blindness, significant visual impairment (listed separately from blindness due to different accommodations), deafness, significant motor impairment making navigation difficult, and dyslexia (which there are ways of accommodating). Thinking about what it takes t…

It should at least be standard for web programmers to develop with the most common disabilities in mind, like different types of hearing and visual impairment. In many cases it would often be trivial for a lot of sites to better accommodate screen readers, maintain usability at larger font sizes, zoom levels, etc. if it was a design consideration from the start. A lot of accommodations also improve the experience for users on different types of devices, in situations in which sound is inappropriate, etc. But because it's not a priority or a standard, things which could easily be accessible are not, and we are making modern life more difficult for others simply through carelessness and a lack of concern.

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#215

Post by joedevon » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 8:18 PM UTC

Great post Fiona! I wrote a similar post ~3 years ago here: http://mysqltalk.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/challenge-accessib... which turned into GAAD, Global Accessibility Awareness Day, a few months later. http://globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org/

I could never have imagined how huge the movement can grow, and I hope you help us celebrate it next year.

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#216

Post by lilsunnybee » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 8:24 PM UTC

hluska wrote: post #81

I don't agree that accessibility is a training issue and I certainly don't agree that it would take a month to become familiar with accessibility guidelines. Rather, download a screen reader (for Windows I like Windows Eyes), learn to use it, shut off your monitor and spend one hour trying to use the web. That will give you all the context that you need. Once you're armed with this experience, make navigating through…

So instead of having any sort of standards and accessibility best practices taught and adopted industry-wide, that take into account a much larger spectrum of disabilities, the programmers reading this should just go and spend an unspecified amount of time using a screen reader from now on?

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#217

Post by lilsunnybee » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 8:29 PM UTC

methodover wrote: post #192

I work at a small startup with a somewhat large user base (1M weekly users or so) and every time I bring up accessibility issues I get shot down. Just the other day I was told "You talk more about accessibility than anyone I've ever met." Well, yeah, because apparently no one fucking cares. Including you. (I said this not out-loud, to be clear.) Thing is, making accessible sites is usually not super difficult. It's m…

It would have been soo awesome if you had said that! :-D

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#218

Post by lilsunnybee » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 8:33 PM UTC

lilsunnybee wrote: post #217

methodover wrote: post #192

I work at a small startup with a somewhat large user base (1M weekly users or so) and every time I bring up accessibility issues I get shot down. Just the other day I was told "You talk more about accessibility than anyone I've ever met." Well, yeah, because apparently no one fucking cares. Including you. (I said this not out-loud, to be clear.) Thing is, making accessible sites is usually not super difficult. It's m…

It would have been soo awesome if you had said that! :-D

Though advocating for fellow human beings who are treated all the time either like they're this giant burden, or like they don't exist, is pretty fucking awesome too. :-)

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#219

Post by hluska » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 8:34 PM UTC

lilsunnybee wrote: post #216

hluska wrote: post #81

I don't agree that accessibility is a training issue and I certainly don't agree that it would take a month to become familiar with accessibility guidelines. Rather, download a screen reader (for Windows I like Windows Eyes), learn to use it, shut off your monitor and spend one hour trying to use the web. That will give you all the context that you need. Once you're armed with this experience, make navigating through…

So instead of having any sort of standards and accessibility best practices taught and adopted industry-wide, that take into account a much larger spectrum of disabilities, the programmers reading this should just go and spend an unspecified amount of time using a screen reader from now on?

Definitely not, but as the OP wrote, you don't start at the HTML5 spec if you want to learn to make web pages. Learning to use a screen reader and actually testing sites with it is not only a very important skill to have, but it will give developers more insight and perspective into accessibility. Standards can fill in the gaps, but I believe you still need a 'wow' moment when you feel completely lost on a website.

Re: 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

#220

Post by lilsunnybee » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 8:46 PM UTC

jiggy2011 wrote: post #149

I imagine the main reason is that catering to disabilities is much much more expensive when you consider the variety of disabilities that there are and how much they differ in severity and how they will affect different individuals in different ways. I also guess that people with more severe disabilities are less likely to control large corporate or personal budgets than the general population and those that do are e…

I don't even think it's possible to make a website that caters to all disabilities. What is awful is that a lot of the most common disabilities (visual and hearing impairments, etc.), that affect a lot more people than you might think, could be accommodated pretty damn easily and cheaply if anyone was aware and cared in the least. But they aren't aware and they don't care, or they laugh it off like being a decent human being and giving a shit is a joke!